


like riding a bike

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flying Doctors
Genre: Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Community: 1_million_words, F/M, Grief, Het, Mention of Past Canonical Character Death, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 02:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11522451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: After his first clinic run since his return, Tom asks Chris to go somewhere with him.





	like riding a bike

**Author's Note:**

> For the one million words weekend challenge, DVD titles. Mine was "Tombstone." 
> 
> Luckily I forced myself to look at the "Gibbo dies" episode because there was a detail in there I'd long forgotten, which required a little tap dancing... I love YouTube.

Chris looked up when she heard the door of the base open, laid down her pen when she only heard one set of footsteps, a set that she recognised instantly. She was beginning to stand up when a figure came to her door, leaned against the frame and gave her a tired smile. "What are you still doing here?" Tom asked her and she glanced pointedly at her desk, waved her hand to illustrate the piles of paper and patient files waiting to be reviewed scattered across it. 

"Everyone else has gone home so I knew I wouldn't be interrupted," she said and when she heard the words come out of her mouth, she could cheerfully have bitten off her tongue. Especially when Tom blinked, looked suddenly unsure of himself. "I didn't mean it like that." She sat back down, gave him what she hoped was an apologetic smile. "So, how was your first clinic run since you've been back?" 

The smile that he gave her was the one that she remembered from years ago, the one that had always had the ability to calm her down, brighten her day. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders and he stepped into her office, leaning against the shelves along the wall. "Like riding a bike, isn't that what they say?" 

Chris tilted her head, pretended to consider it. "I never was much for cycling," she said. He laughed, a sound she hadn't heard much of since his return from Eritrea and his return to the Service, and fine, this might have been why she was sitting in her office doing paperwork on a Saturday afternoon while everyone else in Cooper's Crossing was out actually having a life. The first clinic run was a big deal and even if he hadn't said it, she'd known Tom was a little apprehensive about it. She'd hoped he'd come back here afterwards, had hoped he'd be alone - Kate had even said to her, on her way out that morning, that she'd be going straight back to her place to spend the evening with Geoff, had said it with a curl to her lips and a knowing twinkle in her eye. Chris had said nothing, just shaken her head and resolved to have a long talk with her friend about how she and Tom were not just going to pick things up where they left off. 

No matter how much she still wanted that. 

"Me either," Tom said, bringing her back to reality. "Swimming, on the other hand..." He let his voice trail off and Chris's cheeks flushed as she remembered what he no doubt wanted her to remember - a three hour layover in Broken Hill while Gibbo tried to fix the plane, skinny dipping in Evans' dam as Gibbo sneaked up on them, quite a feat whilst flying an aeroplane. 

Her eyes met Tom's and she knew in that moment that she was no more over him than she was the day that he walked out of her life and broke her heart. 

Well, she'd known that already, but this was a painful reminder. 

Sure what she was feeling was written all over her face, she gave him a weak smile. He smiled back, a little tired, a lot fond, but there was a sadness in his eyes as well. "Look, Chris... I know I have no right to ask this..." She sat up straighter in her chair, frowning. "But... would you go somewhere with me?" 

Which was how she came to be standing in front of a tombstone with Dave Gibson's name on it, the dates of his birth and death engraved in shiny gold on black marble. It wasn't a place she often came to, preferring to remember Gibbo in other ways, and only Tom Callaghan would voluntarily get her out there. "It's just a placeholder, of course, he was buried in Perth, like his family wanted," she told Tom. "Father Jacko sorted this out... he thought we'd like to have somewhere to pay our respects." 

Tom took a couple of steps away from her, towards the grave and she let him go. Reaching out, he laid a hand on the cool stone and even if she couldn't see his face, she could see him shake his head. He was silent for a long time, then his free hand reached up towards his face, made a distinctive sweeping movement that had Chris's own throat aching with tears. "It was today, during the clinic run," Tom said eventually, still staring at the tombstone. "I was talking to Kate and it was just like old times, like riding a bike, you know? And I turned around, all ready to make a joke to Gibbo... and it was Sam." Chris closed her eyes because it was all too easy to remember that feeling, especially the first clinic run she'd done with Geoff and Kate, the same day as Gibbo's memorial service. "And I knew... I mean, Violet sent me those long letters with all the news... but today was the first time..." He broke off, his head dropping down and she didn't known when she'd moved but she was beside him now, able to place her hand on his shoulder. 

"There are some days," she told him quietly, "when someone puts one of his songs on the jukebox... and I almost expect him to pull me off my chair and start spinning me around the floor." She had a sudden flash of the two of them doing just that, at the Queen of the Outback when he'd been asking her for advice on whether to take up a new job or not. She smiled fondly as she stared down at the name. "He was a pretty terrible dancer, you know."

Tom's chuckle sounded as much surprised as amused. "I did not know that," he said, turning his head and looking into her eyes. His eyelashes were wet, his eyes red, but he was the Tom of old when he spoke. "But I'm interested to know how you do." 

He was teasing her, she knew that, but there was an element of question there too. "Nothing like that," she told him honestly. "But we were friends." She shrugged as he stood up. "We had to be really... all those awkward morning conversations waiting for you to stop hogging the hot water had to lead somewhere."

That made him roll his eyes. "You know as well as I do that the only water hog was Gibbo." She suddenly realised how close they were standing to one another, closer than they had been since he'd been back in town and he was looking down at her like he was seeing her for the first time. "You know, my last conversation with him was the morning I left... when he came out of the bathroom, having used up most of the hot water, I might add." He was joking, but the memories of that little house, of Gibbo, of Tom and how she'd felt when he'd left, meant that Chris didn't feel like laughing. "He told me that part of him understood what I was doing. But that other part of him thought that I had a good job, a nice house, the love of a good woman and that I was a complete idiot for throwing that all away." 

Chris sucked in a sharp breath, wrapped her arms around herself. "He said something along those lines to me too," she admitted. "And that you'd be back one day." 

"Guess he was right." Tom closed one hand around her shoulder and the heat of his touch sent shivers down her spine. He must have been able to feel that, but he didn't comment on it, instead flexed his fingers against her skin, which did nothing to stave off another shiver. 

"Tom-" Her voice gave out on his name and she had to press her lips together, turn away from him to regain some composure. 

"I know we can't pick back up where we left off," he said, echoing her earlier thoughts. "Everything I've seen, everything that happened over there... I'm not the same Tom Callaghan that left Cooper's Crossing... left you. But I've been looking at you the last few weeks... and I don't think you're the same woman I left either." 

He was more right than he knew and she nodded as she lifted one hand to her chest, ran it over her heart and the scar there. "No," she said, quietly. "No, I'm not." 

"So I was thinking... we're neither of us who we were. But you're still a hell of a woman, Chris Randall. And I'm a disaster, I know that, I'm an emotional wreck and you deserve so much more than me... but can I buy you dinner? See if the people we are now get along as well as the people we were then?" 

Now it was Chris's turn to wipe away tears before she turned around, looked him up and down. "You're not doing a very good job of selling yourself, Doctor Callaghan," she informed him, as archly as she could manage given the circumstances, and he grinned, took a step towards her and held out one hand. 

"You're still not going to let me away with anything, are you?"

"Nope." She stared up at him, not backing down, partly to tease him, partly to test him. "You're not going to have a problem with that, are you?" 

"Chris..." He shook his head slowly, looked her up and down and just like that, all the years of separation and longing seemed to fall away. "I wouldn't have you any other way." 

He was still holding out his hand and she realised that he was waiting for her, waiting for her just like she'd waited for him. "All right then," she said, reaching out and closing her fingers around his. "Dinner it is." 

Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, she could hear the drone of an aeroplane but when she looked up, the sky was clear. A glance at Tom assured her that he too was looking up, the hand that wasn't holding hers shading his eyes as he searched the sky. "You heard that too?" she asked and he nodded, lifting one eyebrow as he met her gaze. 

"You think that's Gibbo's way of saying it's about bloody time?" 

Chris looked down at the grave, easily able to hear her friend saying those very words, picture the grin that would have been on his face if he'd been there with them. "Maybe." 

A fresh wave of tears rose up in her throat and Tom's hand moved down to her hip as he used their joined hands to pull her closer, leaning in and brushing a kiss to the top of her head. "Come on," he said. "Let's get dinner before he starts to haunt us." 

Chris bit back a giggle - Tom always had been able to make her laugh. "OK," she whispered and, hand in hand, they made their way back into town.


End file.
